pc spec

[fordford]

hi
the new renders are looking brilliant.

ive some how created a new post on this forum what daffy posted not sure how i did it.
what sort of spec should i be looking at for my pc to run this game?

regards.

[Daffyflyer]

Yeah, i Noticed that blank post... odd


I think the aim is for about P4 3ghz/6600GT/1gb Ram or so, but i don't know what it will actually be like in the end, it runs at like 6000fps on my PC right now, but thats just because its pretty much all gui at the moment!

[zeussy]

The game uses Shader Model 3.0, so at least a Nvidia 6xxx Series card or atleast an ATI X1xxx series card

The 6600GT will probably be the minimum target card.

Processor I have no real idea on yet. The engine we are using, and the game code is multi-threaded, in its current state it will definitely not run on a Single core PC.

It would not take much work (about 5 mins or so ), to change it to make it more Single core friendly, but as Dual Cores have been out since 2005 the game won't run the best on a Single core.

The Basic layout of threads, for the worse case (i.e highest load)

Client Game Update
Client Render Update
Server Game Update
Client Listener Thread
Client Listener Thread
Client Listener Thread
Client Listener Thread
Client Listener Thread
Client Listener Thread
Client Listener Thread
Client Listener Thread

The client listener threads are very lightweight, 1 is needed for every person connected. It is needed to keep the pings as low as possible.

The Server Game Thread, is more of a batch processor. Each day is calculated as a batch every second to half second or so. Which means a full length game will last from 2.5 to 6 hours. 50 years is 18,250 days / 3600 (how many seconds in an hour) is about 5 hours. The game length time we are thinking is in the range of 1950-2020 ish. This rate of play will be selectable. I was even thinking of perhaps making a more persistant server, that plays without people connected. It remembers each client that connects so they can come back to control their company. With the game rate slowed right down, to say a week per day. With support for more companies, to be played more like a small MMO. I think that could be really fun

Anyway, this threading means that the server load spikes (as each day is calculated), and on single core machine would basically make the game lock up every second or so, making in virtually unplayable.

Even if you play single player this won't help. As the server thread is still created (it does all the grunt work of the game) and you just connect to the server locally, via your machine. It is basically a 1 player multiplayer game.